Notsofast

Please help educate Americans who are confused about these tax credits. Because of so much inaccurate reporting, many Americans believe Wisconsin has given billions to Foxconn. That's not true, and it's not ever going to be true. What Wisconsin did is to say if you build your factory here and create thousands of jobs, we will give you a break regarding the taxes you would have to pay. Whether you agree with giving companies tax credits like this, it's very different than taking existing tax dollars and giving them to a company. Ditto with how it was falsely and ignorantly reported that NY was giving huge amounts of to Amazon that could be used for other purposes. LOL. Those dollars were credits against the tax dollars that Amazon would owe. And now that Amazon isn't coming there, they don't exist!

deminsd said:

larryjw said:

If you can't afford $99 developer fee, you're not in the business of making a profit. At best, you have a hobby not a profession.

Not the point.  Apple has a monopoly over app distribution and the 30% piece of the pie is what is the "profit killer".  Not many businesses can take a 30% cut on profit.




Excuse business people for chuckling at your comment.  It's not to make fun of you, but it's just that business people wish that your idea of how the business world worked was true.  In reality, it's understood that a business is going to be lucky to get with a 50% share of the retail price. That's why people thought it was so great when Apple built the App store and invited developers to participate and charged them only 30%.  (*It's also why so many developers are amazed that Apple doesn't charge them anything beyond the $99 if the developer wants to give away their app and make a bunch of money off of advertising or by having customers sign up directly with them.  Spotify, for example, takes in 100% of the billions in ad revenue, and 100% of the revenue from customers who don't go through the App store, even though Apple subsidizes the Spotify App for free for the vast majority of Spotify subscribers.

As you read up on this topic, you'll also learn that Apple has already put $150 BILLION dollars into the pockets of developers around the world through the App store, and every single one of these developers sat down and decided to make an iOS App knowing that if they wanted access to a BILLION customers around the planet where Apple would take care of every aspect of screening the customers, billing, etc., that they were going to have to pay an annual $99 developer fee, and that if they wanted to sell digital goods via the App, they were going to have to pay Apple a commission of 15 or 30%.  

Many good points.  Think you're off base in your description of voice assistants and the importance of Siri in Apple's near and longer term future.  First, you're correct about Google, Amazon, etc., in not "selling" products, and yes, surveys show only a tiny number of people actually buy things through them, but that's not their real goal.  They can't admit it, but Google Assistant and Echo are data collection devices, and in that regard they are enormously successful.  Amazing that people are oblivious or don't care that everything they say in front of GA is sent to Google's servers and retained forever and linked to what they call a "universal identifier" which is their virtual dossier they build on every person they can.

As far as Siri, I think you're wrong about the massive amounts of money Apple is pouring into Siri.  Tim Cook periodically touts that Siri is the most used, by far, digital assistant in the world, and is really the most powerful in terms of what she can do, how many languages she speaks, etc.  They are also incorporating Siri into every device because they realize how important voice will be to wearables, etc., e.g., AirPods, Beats, Apple Watch, etc..  Augmented Reality is going to be heavily integrated with Voice/Siri and Siri will be integral in any successful effort.   

Siri is a sleeper because the Internet meme is that "Siri sucks," but nothing could be further from the truth.  Indeed, Siri has a long way to go, but as I wrote above, Siri is by far the most used in the world, and as multiple studies show, as is second in terms of accuracy to Google, ahead of Echo, and closing fast.  Siri does very well on the things that people actually want to currently do with their assistants, e.g., play music, podcasts, make phone calls, check on traffic, read and send messages, check sports and weather, set timers, alarms, control Homekit devices, etc.  I concur that once you buy a Homepod and start using Siri in these regards, you'll never go back and wonder why you waited so long. Ditto for Siri and Apple TV, makes it so much more convenient to tell Siri to pause, play a show, go back, etc.  "What did they say?" feature is an ingenious simple delight.

Siri doesn't have thousands of "skills" like Amazon, but it turns out that surveys show most people haven't used a single one of those separate skills for echo. More importantly, with the new Siri shortcuts, you can make any skill you want, so if you want to duplicate the Amazon "skill" of making a fart sound, you can make a Siri shortcut do it as well,  all without sacrificing your privacy and having contract workers in the Ukraine listening to fart sounds in your home!

Finally, making Siri more conversational is the Holy Grail.  That's why Apple bought and is buying companies like VocalIQ (read up on this), as the ability to have sequential conversations, etc., will lead to massive and adoption across the board and is essential part of Apple's future.

That's the part that is the subject of debate; i.e., how much of the current climate change cycle, which are always occurring, is caused or changeable by man.  We know so little that we can't answer that question yet. 

Latko said:

Every substantiation mentioned here indicates that they’re simply too late, given their ambitions. Same for Music Streaming, and Project Titan soon.

Only in the non-business world do people throw around the comment "too late."  The tech world simply doesn't work that way.  Non business people mistakenly assume that markets are fixed and static, but consumers spend based on costs and benefits which in the tech world are dynamic.  The extreme fallacy of your comment is perhaps best illustrated by how wide of the mark you are with your claim that Apple was too late to music streaming.  LOL.  Yes, Apple started after everyone else, but in a short time they have zoomed to number 2 in the world, at a faster pace than Spotify.  Apple Music is now #1 in North America, and significantly, unlike Apple, Spotify is hemorrhaging money with an unpromising future.  For other famous examples of "Apple's too late,"  see the iPhone, Apple News (now #1 in the world), iPad, etc.